September 28, 2009 – Even before the stimulus legislation passed, the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) was on track to spend more than $71 billion in the fiscal year that ends September 30. The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act gave the department another $48 billion to hand out, bringing the total to $119 billion. Transportation-related spending by agencies such as the Department of Homeland Security, and tax breaks for benefits like parking and transit passes, nudge the number even higher.
Where did all this money go? How much of it went toward subsidy programs? Today,
Subsidyscope releases information and search functions to help taxpayers and policy makers answer these and other questions. We've collected data from USAspending.gov and other sources and built a
searchable database of transportation spending; users can query by grant recipient, state, government program and many other parameters. We've gathered additional data from federal agencies that shed light on specific programs, many of which receive little public scrutiny. We've documented tax deductions that benefit corporations and individuals and cost the government billions of dollars each year, and insurance programs that could expose taxpayers to massive payouts in the event of a disaster.
Among our findings:
- More than $45 billion of federal transportation spending in FY2008 was directed to programs that contain subsidies, an increase of around 20 percent since FY2000.
- Comparing direct payments such as grants by transportation mode, in FY2008, $30 billion was spent on highways, nearly $9 billion on mass transit, nearly $3 billion on aviation, $1 billion on rail, $387 million on maritime and $126 million was spent on other programs such as pipelines and recreational trails. Spending on tax breaks and risk transfers, such as loans, totaled less than $4 billion.
- From fiscal years 2000 through 2008, California received the most funding of any state — more than $38 billion. Vermont received the least ($1.5 billion). However, California received the least transportation aid per resident — $1,038. Alaska received the most money per capita ($8,183), almost eight times higher than California. For more, see here.
- The biggest transportation tax break goes to employees for parking costs. In fiscal year 1998 the government lost an estimated $1.5 billion in revenue through this benefit. By fiscal year 2008, the number almost doubled to nearly $3 billion. By fiscal year 2014, it's expected to reach almost $4 billion.
- The tax break for employer-provided transit passes grew almost seven-fold, from $70 million in fiscal year 1998 to $480 million last year, and is projected to reach $660 million in FY 2014. While the gap is narrowing, employers still subsidize driving over transit by a margin of six-to-one.
- Per capita, New York received the most money through the Federal Transit Formula Grants program — $278. Mississippi got the least — $14.
- Direct loans for highway projects constituted the largest transportation-related risk transfer in fiscal year 2008, putting the government on the hook for more than $1 billion.
It should be noted that not all federal spending on transportation constitutes a subsidy. But after an extensive
vetting process, Subsidyscope has determined that most programs contain subsidies, the precise value of which is often impossible to determine. The data we release today, and will release on transportation and other sectors of the economy in the coming months, will enable users to search both for major trends and arcane nuggets of information (e.g., Puerto Rico received $948 million in transportation funding from fiscal year 2000 through 2008, mostly for public transit). We'll supplement the sector-by-sector release of USAspending.gov data with Web postings and stand-alone datasets – some obtained from federal agencies through the Freedom of Information Act, others from agency Web sites – that provide a closer look at individual programs.
To learn more about government subsidies — the "hidden budget" — see our
Subsidyscope framing paper.
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